Big week. We have the Presidetial nationwide mobile alert system 30 minute "test" on the 3rd, which many say will coincide with an event, possibly a grid-off crackdown. We also have chatter about Feinstein being taken down, or even suicided -- naturally all of this is unconfirmed conjecture. Bottom line is a lot of balls in play this week. Some say the Kavanaugh thing was a set up...giving people ropes to hang themselves with. Time will tell. Stay frosty!
I don’t encounter any preppers at the school that day, but I do meet women from all over the United States and with all kinds of reasons for wanting to learn how to cut and drill wood, including a young yoga studio employee from Wisconsin who is building some custom shelving for her kitchen appliances and cookbooks, as well as two seniors from Washington, DC, who want to build a set of matching cabinets to house their prized collection of vintage wine glasses. Down by the garden, I meet a pair of women from Missouri who are hoping to go into business flipping houses. “We’re tired of waiting for our husbands to do it,” one of them says.
It’s one thing to have solar panels, another to have a generator, and quite a remarkably nice thing once the best of both worlds are mixed. Yes, this is high up there on my dream wishlist. No, it’s not at all a necessity, but would it make life one heck of a lot easier if you had this even during a power outage – hell yes. Also – “It takes the same amount of time to charge your device from a Goal Zero power pack as it does from the wall.” How cool is that??
30. Paper goods, plates, cups, utensils – In addition to the above, having a nice stock of paper plates, cups, and utensils will be extra convenient. Next time you see a super sale on these items at Costco’s or Sam’s try to shoot for a 1 month supply. These can always be used in a short-term crisis, as well as for the first month in a long term to eliminate washing while other critical things needs to be done.
Looking at the state of the world, being prepared is more important than ever. Terrorism is on the rise around the globe. Rogue states like North Korea become more dangerous as their stability fails – and North Korea has nuclear weapons. The USA’s neglected power grid is vulnerable to a solar flare that could wipe out electricity across most of the country for a decade. The climate’s changing – calm down, Al Gore, it’s been changing constantly for 4.5 billion years – and that could lead to major storms or even larger scale disasters. Imagine the chaos if a freak wet spring devastated the US wheat crop. That’s a real risk; it’s happening in France right now – but France can replace its crop with imports. We can’t.
The content on The Prepper Journal is provided as general information only. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of anyone else. The author may or may not have a financial interest in any company or advertiser referenced. Any action taken as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement on this site is ultimately the responsibility of the reader.
We can build up our stockpile all we wan’t but what happens when Martial law takes effect and they want what we have, as a christian I don’t believe we should kill anyone in order to protect our stuff , what is a christian supposed to do if we feel to prep now only to have it taken from us then? Should we hide our preps in places away from our home? Thank you
Enigma, your constant harping about the “Zionists” is really obnoxious! Regardless of what you’ve heard, the Jews (or Zionists, or Hebrews or whatever you choose to call them) are NOT singlehandedly responsible for the ills of the world! Neither is Trump, neo-cons, whites, blacks, the left, the right, the middle, Russia, China, North Korea, the USA, etc.,etc.,etc. There’s plenty of culpability to go around, so fix the problem, not the blame! Same goes for you too JJ, with your “white man’s guilt”. Unless you personally are guilty of racist actions/remarks in the past and this is your way of attoneing please stop blaming white conservatives for the inner city blight. And actually, slavery is alive and well. Undocumented workers who have been encouraged to come here with lies are forced to work for sub-standard wages because they can’t get real jobs because they’re illegal. And a LOT are in Calfornia where there are sanctuary cities and also big agro. What a coincidence! And many poor minority youths can’t find jobs so they sell drugs to other poor minorities who get arrested and go to jails which are big businesses, often the biggest employers in urban areas. Then when they get out they can’t find work, so they wind up on the dole ( also big business), start slinging again and on and on. Have you never noticed that the kids killed by “accident” in the random drive by are ALWAYS nice, bright kids who had a real future ahead of them? They would have broken out of the cycle of poverty and desperation and probably been able to help others do the same which would have messed up the local economy if enough people got on board. That would also adversely affect the local politicians who depend on a subjugated constituency for voting blocs and the all important base. They fulfill just enough of their election promises to lull their base into thinking that things will actually change for the better, then they start sneaking their actual agenda through. Don’t get sucked into this blame game b.s. ! Put the blame where it belongs – big business, big government and human greed.
If I can cite the number one reason people become overwhelmed when even thinking about putting aside an emergency food supply, it is the perceived sense of urgency that it all needs to be done right now. And this, for many, results in complacency and inaction. Don’t fall into this trap. Begin with a three day supply and gradually build that up to a week. After that, add to your emergency food supply week by week until pretty soon, you have three months of food stored away for you and your family.
I find generators that can be transported easily to be a way better idea than just regular generators – don’t know why and let me know if you agree/disagree in the comments. Thanks to the fact that generators have been around for a long time (unlike solar panels I mean), you can get some great products for what’s, in my opinion, a perfectly reasonable cost. And while I’d prefer to have a solar generator like the one listed at #6, something like this is much more affordable, and gas is easy to get, so I will likely end up with a portable gas generator first.
I guess I have been taking a longer view. Any disaster will shut down delivery to stores so all fresh greens will stop. I remember that during the same period in history the Polynesian sailors were able to stay out at sea much longer than European sailors and didn’t know what scurvy was. They used bean sprouts to supplement their diet. Last Christmas I asked my wife for a bean sprouter. It has been a lot of fun playing with, eating and learning to work with a multitude of seeds. One interesting fact was that wheat sprouts have an interesting sweat taste. This got me gathering information about what makes good sprouting seeds and it seems that fresh and non-treated (as usually done by our commercial world) is the critical factor. It was about the same time I learned that one of my nearby farm friends has a crop of winter wheat being harvested this July and would have no problem giving me a 5 gal bucket. (@ ~$8.00 a bushel) So I started looking for a food grade bucket and learned that both Jewel and Dominics (grocery stores) go through a number of 5 and or 2.5 gal buckets weekly or daily, (labels usually describe cake icing) for free. Sometimes I have to clean the remnants out, but that’s not to hard and the price is right and they are food grade. I am excited to have fresh wheat and two uses for wheat. Opps I still need to get a flower mill. One step at a time. I have the buckets now.

Also, include a good supply of the spices you like to cook with. These flavorings and spices allow you to do many creative things with your grains and beans. Without them you are severely limited. One of the best suggestions I can give you is buy a good food storage cookbook. Go through it and see what your family would really eat. Notice the ingredients as you do it. This will help you more than anything else to know what items to store.

How would you like to call a missile base home? America built 107 missile bases around the country during the arms race in the 1960s, including the Atlas F Missile Silo located about 130 miles north of Albany. It was decommissioned after only four years and has sat dormant and neglected for decades, eventually selling for $160,000 in 1997 and again for $575,000 in 2015. Bear in mind that the “super hardened” facility, built for the equivalent of $100 million in today’s dollars, was designed to withstand almost any bomb imaginable.
Hey, Possum. The only thing we can do about the evils of this world is to pray for a speedy return of the Lord and in the meantime try to live our lives as well as we can – to try to not contribute to the insanity and misery going on around us but at the same time to not allow ourselves to be marginalized or taken advantage of. And to try not to freak out, which is difficult because it’s hard to not want to choke some of the awful, truly despicable people that we have to share planet space with. But that’s why we have a living God Who came down here in the first place. He had to deal with worse than most of us have to and will help us deal if we ask Him. Faith is an important survival tool we haven’t discussed much. It gives you hope, and without hope you won’t survive anything. You may continue to exist, but you won’t be living.
You should have two weeks’ worth of non-perishable, easy-to-prepare survival food in your home — no good prep is complete without it. If you want to skip the DIY labor and just buy something off the shelf, we spent 180+ hours reviewing over $2,000 worth of the most popular products. After testing 11 options from 7 companies, the best choice for most people is the new Emergency Essentials Premier bucket. Three of which cover two people for more than two weeks for $379.
Some of us may prep a little and others may prep a lot. Along the way, we may make some of the mistakes I have listed above, and most assuredly there will be others. At the end of the day, however, we all want to live a life filled with growth, opportunity and the ability to take care of oneself physically, mentally and spiritually. To me, that is what prepping is all about, mistakes and all.
Now that you’ve sorted out a proper food store you can start stocking it. When it comes to storage life and bulk, dry goods are supreme. You can store a few weeks’ worth of canned or packet foods, but with dry goods you can easily be self-sufficient for months or even years. Start your food reserve with 20 pounds of rice (white lasts longer in storage) and 20 pounds of dried beans. Between them those two will give you a solid reserve of carbohydrates and protein, and you can use them as a base for a whole range of recipes supplemented with seasonings, canned or dried ingredients, and food you’ve harvested from nature.
A number of popular movies and television shows[definition needed], such as the National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers, have also emerged recently[when?] to capitalize on what Los Angeles Times' entertainment contributor Mary McNamara dubbed "today's zeitgeist of fear of a world-changing event."[28] Additionally, doomsday ideas disseminated mostly online in relation to the 2012 phenomenon surrounding misunderstandings about the Mayan calendar fueled the activities of some survivalists during the run-up to the phenomenon's purported December 2012 date of the world's demise.
Jesus’ final words make it clear that circumstances are changing. Opposition to the disciples is rising. Where before Jesus had sent them out empty-handed yet they were provided for (9:1-6; 10:3-4), now they will have to take provisions and protection for their travel. They will have to procure a sword. Scripture such as Isaiah 53:12 is finding its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is rejected; he is numbered with the transgressors.
But a new year is really just another twelve-month slice of the future, and it contains dangers as well as opportunities. Obviously we hope none of the bad things the future can hold will come to pass, but we have to be realistic – the world isn’t always a friendly place. Good things will happen in 2018, but bad things can and will happen too. Some of those bad things have the potential to be truly disastrous, and we need to be prepared to face them if they happen.
Once you've accounted for safety and health, there's also mental well-being. “You want things to help keep your mind occupied,” Martin says. “When you don't know what to do you get bored and anxious.” Think cards, board games, books, “things to make you comfortable and happy.” It was kind of amazing how much reading I got done in our last bout with no TV.
The MPS totes let in a little water when we submerged them. And the tote lid bent a little under the weight testing, but did not collapse or hurt the food. As expected, the cardboard boxes containing Mountain House foods got soggy immediately. But the packets of food themselves are waterproof. The boxes stacked well but didn’t offer nearly the same protection as the buckets.
The Oppidum is located in Czech Republic, a region surrounded by mountains. The place was never targeted as a subject for aggression. Geographically, any possible conflict will most likely stay away from Czech Republic or invaders may likely reach it at a later stage. By that time, residents and the owner of The Oppidum will arrive and have plenty of time to prepare.

Liz – I’m not normally one to call someone out… But… You’re WRONG! The body ABSOLUTELY cannot survive without carbohydrates. Scientifically impossible! You might want to have a full blood workup done and an exhaustive vitamin panel. No way, no how, you’ve been on a meet and water diet for a year! After a couple of weeks your body would go into ketosis. Not long after that, absence of Carbs would start to affect brain function. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish with your comment, but you’re “advice” will be sending people to the hospital!

This article from OffGridNews. What initially caught my interest with this article was how he feels the same about how the show Doomsday Preppers exploits preppers and perpetuates the stereotype by making all preppers look like crazy off the wall people. Although I do have my days, I am not a social outcast waiting for the end. Preppers are not hoping a disaster will happen, we are preparing just in case. When something catastrophic happens, we will not be as “shocked” and therefor better prepared.
If you can only afford one gun, get a 12-gauge pump action. The Remington 870 is always a popular choice – militaries around the world value its reliability. A shotgun is the most versatile gun you can own, because it can take a wide variety of game as well as being an awesome home defense weapon. For preparedness it’s far superior to a small-caliber rifle like an AR15.
I’ve just explained why EMP wouldn’t be as destructive as a full-scale nuclear war, but it would still be devastating – and it’s a lot more likely than a Cold War-style missile exchange. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, it’s a lot more survivable for the aggressor; our government might hesitate to launch a retaliatory strike on a country, killing millions of its people, because its leaders exploded a nuclear warhead in space. Secondly there are more countries who are capable of doing it right now or could be there in a matter of months.
If you are reading this article, I would imagine that you have never eaten an MRE before. Why do I say that? Well, for anyone who has eaten MREs you probably already have a strong opinion about them or at the very least, your experience might be based upon military service years ago. That is the perspective I was coming from when Meal Kit Supply approached me about reviewing their MREs that they produce. I had eaten more than my fair share of MREs when I was in the Army, but things have changed as you would expect with the passage of more years than I want to think about so I decided to take them up on the offer and while I was at it, share my opinion on what if any place MREs have in the food storage plan for preppers.
It would also be good to have trapping, and hunting equipment on hand. Things like compound bows; machetes, knives, a knife block, snare wire and a rifle with ammunition would be a few things to start with. Prepper food-storage is needed, but in times of adversity and emergency, having a way of protecting yourself and a way to hunt food is optimal and ideal.
These individuals study End Times prophecy and believe that one of various scenarios might occur in their lifetime. While some Christians (and even people of other religions) believe that the Rapture will follow a period of Tribulation, others believe that the Rapture is imminent and will precede the Tribulation ("Pre-Trib Rapture[41] "). There is a wide range of beliefs and attitudes in this group. They run the gamut from pacifist to armed camp, and from having no food stockpiles (leaving their sustenance up to God's providence) to storing decades' worth of food.
I mean, how can you possibly deny the usefulness of one of these? I’ve spoken about it before in my article about staying indoors when the power’s out: having a brick room-sized shed/garage separate from the house and put a fireplace there is pretty much my idea of the perfect prepper space to create. And this is the wood-burning stove/fireplace that would go there. In my dreams of course, because first you need to have the right property, then the right garage/shed, then finally I can grab this sort of remarkably useful kind of thing.
This one in particular can get unruly fast, as there’s always plenty you’ll want to do with regards to prepping no matter how much you’ve already got done and under your belt. If you’ve already started one of these, it’s been set up for a while, and happens to be a complete mess, take a look at the article I spoke about before, on re-organizing your prepper to-do list. It will help you sort your list out in an order that makes sense.
Vivos promises the biggest feature is the extremely low and affordable price with each bunker being privately sold for $25,000, with a land lease and bunker lease for 99 years. Owners can bring as many friends and family members for their private bunker at no extra charge. Each bunker is offered in its “as-is” condition, ready for outfitting and provisioning by the buyer, including the needed interior mechanical systems (plumbing, electrical, power generation, air filtration and exhaust), and the build-out and furnishing to suit personal needs.
“Before the nuclear age, it was thought that only a wrathful deity or natural force (pandemic, planetary collision, etc) would bring about the end of the world,” he says. “But some time in the 1980s, it became clear that there were so many nuclear weapons on the planet that we could literally bring about the end, not only of Homo sapiens but pretty much extinguish most life on Earth through a nuclear exchange,” he says.
In the previous decade, preparedness consultant, survival bookseller, and California-based author Don Stephens popularized the term retreater to describe those in the movement, referring to preparations to leave cities for remote havens or survival retreats should society break down. In 1976, before moving to the Inland Northwest, he and his wife authored and published The Survivor's Primer & Up-dated Retreater's Bibliography.
I would like to add something, not necessarily to the list, but more like “food for thought” ideas that could very well save you and your family’s life. Living in the South, you “will almost” grow up around some natural disasters, whether it be a hurricane or tornado, most of us here take “prepping” very serious..and we learn a lot from those disasters also (I.e. Hurricane Katrina). I grew up around great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, other relatives and friends, who have a garden, almost for the entire year. Learning to can and freeze food was as natural as brushing your teeth! During the summer, when school is out, we shelled peas, shuck corn(yeah say that fast!), canned beans and tomatoes, picked berries, smashed berries, and, on occasion, churned butter! I wish I had a dollar for every pea I shelled! I be richer than Midas! Knowing these “techniques” can make a huge difference in feeding your family for several months without electricity. There have been lots of times when we would get lunch or diner straight out of the garden, washed and prepped, cooked, and on the plate in a couple of hours. No storage. No refrigeration! Scraps of food went into the garden or compost. And you can cook this stuff straight over an open fire. Two words…”cast iron”…it is a very good investment…it is great to use anywhere…open fire or stove! You don’t have to wash cast iron(I know it does sound gross, but believe it or not, that is the “beauty” of cast iron)..you wipe it out and keep it seasoned. You can cook anything in cast iron, from biscuits…to a cake! People with cast iron can cook almost forever! I would view it as essential. Enough about the garden.
That leads to forget about being totally self sufficient, it won’t happen. There are things you need aside from food, but even just food, nobody can produce all they need unless they live in the perfect environment. Going into the great outdoors and becoming the great hunter… not happening either. Even skilled hunters and fishermen will starve because there are too many looking to do that. If you are like us and have ponds, therein lies 1 solution, stock it with fish.
Vivos, a company owned by Robert Vicino, a California entrepreneur, has the rights to lease 575 of these concrete bunkers in Igloo outside of Edgemont, S.D. People from across the country were in Igloo on Friday, May 19, 2017, looking at the bunkers as end of the world shelters.(Chris Huber /Rapid City Journal via AP) Chris Huber / Rapid City Journal
Sanitation Supplies- You definitely don’t want to overlook this! You don’t need to have everything you take for granted on a daily basis, but you need to take care of the basics. Most obviously get plenty of toilet paper, wet wipes and feminine products for cleanliness. Get more TP than you think you’ll need; trust me, the first time you have to use improvised material or technique to clean your rear, you’ll remember me, and women need more than men do at any rate. You may yet have to switch to pinecones, but let’s forestall that as much as we can, eh?

To start, I suggest purchasing a basic 3 month supply of your everyday foods! Then add a little each time you shop. I have a mix of freeze dried, dehydrated, LDS, Thrive Life, 5 gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids. It really depends on the item. I actually eat what I store. Be realistic. I buy boxes of red beans and rice, Zatarians, use a freeze dried beans, It cooks super fast and is nutritious. Same with scalloped potatoes. These are easy to cook comfort meals that are good for emergencies. Add a can of Costco chicken and you have a great meal.

4. Weather Radios ($35 – $80, alerts are free) or Weather Warning Apps (free) – Weather radios have channels to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA provide coverage to government-designated weather channels 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Weather radios can be programmed to beep loudly when extreme weather is expected. They can report on multiple counties or just one county. There are also multiple options for the sound alert. Internet and cell service might be interrupted during extreme weather so a battery operated weather radio is a great option. Click here to learn more about how to get weather warnings from a radio.

Also, what about a bike – perhaps with a electric generator that can couple to it, with a nice rack on the front or back to carry things in it? I really appreciate preparing and actually stepping into a lifestyle more reliant on my own skills and power, rather then something like a diesel generator that would be useless in the event of total system failure.

This is not an actual website but a YouTube video blog of sorts. This channel has many survival videos based around survival tactics and self defense. This video talks about people moving out of the city’s. I agree with his philosophy on this that people will not leave the city until necessary because they will be wain=ting for the government to bail them out. I also wrote an article about how people will react in a disaster situation.
An emergency can strike without warning and unfortunately, most people find out too late that they are missing the essential supplies. Far too many times you’ve seen on the news how people line up in front of grocery stores hoping to get some last minute survival foods. If you end up doing the same, you should at least know what to buy from your grocery store.
Water ionizers are appliances attached to kitchen faucets. These appliances produce ionized water by treating regular tap water with minerals and electric current. Ionized water is alkaline or low pH water which consists of a large amount of electrically charged hydroxyl ions. What is alkaline water? Alkaline is highly effective in maintaining body pH level. […]
Today, the property would be of interest only to the most ambitious apocalyptic rehabbers. It consists of a launch control center surrounded by three-foot thick concrete, plus the main silo—measuring 180 feet in height and 52 feet in diameter, most of it underground—which the owner can repurposed as needed. Water has leaked into the property for years, but the latest listing states that it has been “cleaned and dewatered.”
Then focus on building up ammunition supplies. After a major collapse ammo will be more valuable than gold, and it’s generally not something you want to run short of. For the shotgun get a range of shells, from bird shot to rifled slug. In rifle and handgun calibers quantity is the most important factor; cheap military surplus beats premium ammo simply because you can buy more of it. The target effect difference between cheap and fancy ammo is incremental, but an extra round is an extra round.
I apologize for posting twice, I do not reply on these forums very often and am not quite sure how I did that. However,I did not and do not absolve any party from blame. Right wing repression knows no party, the thousands of lynchings were not done by democrats or republicans, they were done by white men afraid of losing their power. The murders and mass killings in the places I listed were done by whites afraid of losing the power and privilege they had accumulated.

You just never know what tomorrow will bring, but don’t wait until the time of a crisis to practice some of these skills. Learn to garden, because fresh food is healthier…make it a natural part of your life. Two tomatoe plants can produce a lot of tomatoes! Learn to fish..for fun with the family! Make a mental note of the people around you (or coworkers) who hunt. Learn to milk a cow(I am not kidding). Learn to sew or knit. Learn to cook over an open fire pit…make sure you build a fire pit! These are little things you can do now…without a computer. Hold practice runs with your community with disaster plans. A manual is not going to help you. What you know on a regular basis, will. What good is 20 lbs of rice going to do without knowing how to cook it without a stove or electricity???! It’s not! And for heavens sake, take a first aid class, and invest in a very good first aid kit. That is something you should do anyway.

“My first thought was to get my kids and us dressed! And then it was, “Crap! Close the windows!” We have no car here, and nowhere to go, so we were going to shelter in place. As far as I know, we aren’t near any military installations or big cities (we are staying outside of Kona). And then I started thinking about what supplies we have here- which isn’t much at all. And there was a bit of fatalism, figuring that if it is our day to die, then it’s our day, and not much I could do about it. And we were burning up our phones on social media both to get the word out and to find out what was really happening. But it was a good 10-15 minutes of fear.

As someone who reads a lot on the internet, you have likely come across many authorities with “expert” advice on one topic or another. This is where the gray matter between your ears becomes the most important tool in your box of prepper skills. Think it through before you unilaterally apply someone’s expertise to your own situation. Let me repeat: this includes advice and suggestions from this website!

We have our wheat, rice, oatmeal, sugar, beans, etc. in 5 gallon FOOD GRADE buckets. Make sure they are food grade. Our local Winco grocery store sells them. We make sure at least one bucket of each thing has a gamma seal lid on it. If you take the regular lids off and on and off and on they will eventually break then you have a bucket. The gamma seal lids have a screw on/off lid. Never stack buckets with gamma seal lids more than two high. Regular lids can be stacked three high. I know people who stored wheat in 55 gallon drums then found out they had to move. HUGE MISTAKE. We disinfect the buckets with apple cider vinegar then let them air dry before putting food in. We’ve been doing this for 40 years.

If you just need to cover one person for two weeks in the cheapest way possible, you can buy one bucket for $130 and stretch the 27,330 total calories an extra day or two at 1,900 calories per day instead of the usual 2,275. Or buy two buckets for the cheapest way to cover two people. But we’d recommend a minimum of two buckets regardless, even for one person, just for redundancy and the unexpected.
At one, a prominent venture capitalist was said to have told fellow diners of his escape plans. In the garage of his San Francisco home, he told guests, is a bag of guns hanging from the handlebars of a motorcycle. The bike will allow him to weave through traffic on the way to his private plane, and the guns are for defense against encroaching zombies that may threaten his getaway.
Just be aware, if you have stored mixes like bisquick or cake mixes which have baking powder in them. Baking powder has a shelf life, after that shelf life, the bp isn’t stable so your product may not rise and/or may taste funny. Depending on what form of dry milk (powder as opposed to instant milk) is used, that can also make your premixes go bad.
Then you would need water, food, composting toilet. There would likely be an EMP, so you’d need a radio protected in mylar bag, and that bag has to be protected from the blast. The radio may be a source of info about how your area was hit. The government would do a survey about the affected area. If you are on your own, you’d need a radiation detector and knowledge to do your own survey. You’d likely need to leave an area eventually, but EMP likely would’ve disabled your car.

A collection of thunderstorms over the Caribbean is likely to strengthen into a tropical storm that could strike the Gulf Coast next week between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle. The system, northeast of Honduras, has a 70 percent chance of becoming Tropical Storm Michael in the next five days, the National Hurricane Center said Friday. A strike along the Gulf Coast could come as early as Tuesday. Oil rigs may be evacuated, may be a good time to fuel up if you're in effected areas.

Editor’s Note: This article was generously contributed by Clarence Mason and in it he compares and contrasts two different survival bunker designs. Each have their advantages, but if you are considering building your own survival retreat option in the future, it makes sense to consider what is the best bunker design before you get too far down the planning road.

Yes, that is true. Many years ago I was all into reading tarot cards, reading palms and crap like that. I relied mostly on my wit & street smarts, mainly because I have always been a loner most of my adult life, just me & the animals. About 10 or so years ago, I started praying, sporadically at first, then everyday, just because I could see that I was no longer in control of things, even though I worked like mad to ‘fix’ my environment/job/health life, etc…. I was trying to ‘will’ things to happen, just by sheer determination, but I just couldn’t do it alone anymore….. It is still hard, some days. You try to do the right thing, speak “up” speak “out”, protect the weak, old, infirm, nurture the environment and all it’s beautiful creatures, & and at the same time keep your ego in check….
outisde of the local systems, all newer cell phones in the US should be Wireless Emergency Alerts capable (WEA). Check with your carrier to make sure that your phone is capable (there is some variance by carrier on some phone models.) Then make sure that the service is turned on in your phone settings. These alerts are sent by authorized agencies through a dedicated infrastructure, and there is no need to sign up. If you are in a Tsunami affected alert area, you will get the alert, and the phone does not stop the alert until you acknowledge it. It is important to keep your phone on and charged 24/7. If in the US, Warnings will also be broadcast by NOAA weather radio.
“Title-1 schools are on the free-breakfast and free-lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I’m not talking about a glass of milk and a roll. But a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make the Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (Our tax dollars at work!)
But women like Jennifer aren’t preparing for a currency collapse, biowarfare pandemic, or any of the other fantastical global crises that have made America’s prepper subculture synonymous with bunkers, bitcoin, and Infowars conspiracy theories. Instead, they view prepping as a lifestyle — one that has very little to do with defending their territory from hostile invaders and everything to do with the more quotidian business of providing for your family and running a home.

The disciples take Jesus’ remarks literally and incorrectly. They note that they have two swords, but Jesus cuts off the discussion. Something is not right, but it is too late to discuss it. As the arrest will show, they have misunderstood. They draw swords then, but Jesus stops their defense in its tracks. He is not telling them to buy swords to wield in physical battle. They will have to provide for themselves and fend for themselves, but not through the shedding of blood. They are being drawn into a great cosmic struggle, and they must fight with spiritual swords and resources. The purchase of swords serves only to picture this coming battle. This fight requires special weapons (Eph 6:10-18).

Hi, GNP. While, as a fellow Canuck, I applaud your noble sentiments I fear that in a true extended grid-down situation your idealism could be viewed as naivete and could get you and your neighbours killed or worse. And I am not criticizing or judging you but I don’t think most of us can imagine how bad it might get if a true SHTF situation arises. If you live a bit out of the bigger cities, once the looters are finished with them they will turn their eyes to the agricultural hinterland surrounding the cities. They will have no choice unless they all become cannibals. Once the food is completely gone from the major centres the mass of the population will spread like locusts across the land raping and pillaging and stealing whatever they can to survive. They will band together in gangs to survive and that will be very difficult to defend against. In any siege situation the advantage is always with the aggressor. They will wear you down bit by bit over time. I have to laugh at the notion of all the very rich secreting themselves in their hidden bunkers to wait out the end of the hostilities. What is there going to be for them to come back to? And if the attackers are determined enough their bunkers are going to be peeled back like so many sardine cans and the insides scooped out for good eatin’. LOL! If we’re talking bible stuff somewhere in there it says something like that no one can hide in caves or things like that if the worst comes to pass. I can see your idea working if you get together with ALL your neighbours before our worst nightmares come to pass and getting EVERYONE in your neighbourhood to start prepping now if they already haven’t done so. And you all have to be of like mind with a self-sufficient survivalist mindset. Everyone needs to have some farming or hunting skills and EVERYONE needs to be armed. AS long as they ALL understand it’s for the common good. Everyone has to bring their own particular skillset to the table and be prepared to work very hard to supplement the dwindling original food supply without the weekly virgin sacrifice. LOL! But that is also fraught with danger if there are laggards that refuse to prep and then they of course know who has supplies stashed away. There is no easy answer. Again, I’m not criticizing. You have to do what you think is right. I’m just trying to open your eyes as to what the reality of the situation may become. As bad as most of us think that things can get I don’t think most of us realize that whatever we can imagine the reality would be a 100 times worse. Under the right circumstances people can succumb to true evil and unfortunately too many people have watched shows like “The Walking Dead” giving them many “good” ideas as to what to do to survive. Unless you have a warehouse full of food and water stashed away you have no chance of even saving a small percentage of your neighbours. And once the easy food and water is gone there is a very good chance of them turning on you. As horrible as it sounds, once the food is gone, then starving people need to be treated like rabid dogs or they WILL pull YOU under and then all your effort is for naught. The only real solution I see is to try and move to a small community where the people are already used to being self-sufficient and settling there until some kind of order is restored. I live on a small crescent in what is still a fairly small town and my neighbours are the best. At the moment! LOL! It’s like a small community within a community. Maybe 200 houses. You do the math as to how many people. I have no hope in hell trying to save as many people as I can with the meager supplies I have managed to put away. As far as I can tell no one here is prepping or has fruit trees in their back yards or any thoughts for the future. And of course no one here knows what I’m doing. As far as they’re concerned I’m a poor, dumb, harmless old man. That suits me fine. I’ll leave you with one last story and it surprised the heck out of me. Came across a video on YouTube and there were three young men. Maybe mid 20’s. Not in any particular good or bad shape. Summertime. They wanted to see how far they could walk in 24 hours starting from the very bottom of Yonge street right by the lake. In 24 hours those sons of a bitches made it all the way up to Barrie. Didn’t think it could be done that quickly. The point being that once the people in the major centres like Toronto run out of food they will start to head north. And we’re talking millions of people. Once that happens the people north of the major centres will be in deep, deep shit. Hope we all have a lot of a ammo. I know that I’m going to get blasted for these comments but that can’t be helped. And I’m also sorry that I think so little of human nature but in a true disaster scenario events will play out quite differently as compared to the many sanitized versions that Hollywood loves to portray. As I say there is no easy answer or no easy solution and when the time comes many very difficult decisions will HAVE to made. OldNamVet has seen the reality of combat and what he proposes makes much more sense to me. Show whatever compassion you can to those refugees that come to your door but then very politely but firmly send them on their way and make sure that they understand this is a one time deal. When the time comes we will all be forced to become hard as diamonds while still retaining some semblance of our humanity. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
I giggled about your reason for not including wheat berries. I agree that many have few or no backing skills or how to make flour but…. I like the idea of wheat because if it is properly stored it can last 30 years and when I first started prepping I told my self that I wasn’t looking for a part time job rotating short lived stock. With my first 5 gal buckets of wheat (from a farmer friend) I also got a manual flour mill. Lots of fun and good exercise. I make some version of whole wheat bread every week. (Don’t want to be heavily invested in prepping and not know how to use what I got!) One season we had a complete wheat failure so I picked up a couple of buckets of soybeans. Another learning curve but eventually made pretty good bean dishes. Question for you and yours, during general internet research I found some articles on Trypsid inhibitor (TI)in beans and how it could be a real problem. Most of the articles appeared to be aimed at telling farmers to not feed soybeans directly (with out some processing) to pigs – in time it can kill them. The TI is neutralized when sufficiently heated. So the hours of boiling beans would take care of this condition but it doesn’t answer questions like:
However, don't wait till the lights go off. “It's best to do research ahead of time to know what tools and resources your utility offers,” Pratt says. Here in Louisville with LG&E I can text to report an outage and receive an estimate for when it should be restored as well as updates on progress. During a recent outage their estimate was spot-on. That intel was super helpful, because I knew I could wait it out and not have to decamp to a coffee shop to work.
Nygaard is a busy woman: In addition to working a full-time job, raising chickens, and growing sweet corn, potatoes, and peppers, she runs a blog called Living Life in Rural Iowa, where she shares bits of wisdom that she’s learned on her prepping journey. Looking back, Nygaard says becoming a prepper encouraged her to develop new skills, including the sorts of home repairs and outdoor work she once counted on her husband to tackle. “Before you get divorced, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s outside. My husband can take care of that.’ And then when you become a single parent, you’re like, ‘Wow, I have to do outdoors and indoors — why did I think he should take care of all that?’ You have that sense that you can do just about anything you set your mind to.”

Tools: A great field knife has 1,000 critical uses, so it’s worth the investment for a large, full tang, high-quality knife. We love the ESEE 5 survival knife because it’s built like a tank and even has a divot in the grip for starting a fire with sticks. For multi-tools, you can’t go wrong with Gerbers or Leathermans; we like this Leatherman OHT. At least 20 feet of quality 550 paracord is a must-have, like this Paracord Planet 7-strand.

Grylls makes great products. I use a lot of his gear when backpacking and this is a definite must. I have been through a couple hundred strikes on this and there is still about 90% of the flint left. It packs away very nicely and is very easy to use. You can produce huge sparks on this if you align the striker and flint properly. The cord that holds the two pieces together does get in the way a little bit since it is fairly short but if you make slow methodical strikes, the cord doesn't get the way too much. If anything it helps make sure that you don't get the two pieces separated. I would definitely recommend this product over other on the market. I bought this for just over $10 over a year ago and have used it on camping trips about every month since then. I ... full review

Big week. We have the Presidetial nationwide mobile alert system 30 minute "test" on the 3rd, which many say will coincide with an event, possibly a grid-off crackdown. We also have chatter about Feinstein being taken down, or even suicided -- naturally all of this is unconfirmed conjecture. Bottom line is a lot of balls in play this week. Some say the Kavanaugh thing was a set up...giving people ropes to hang themselves with. Time will tell. Stay frosty!

1. Something else to consider is a smart phone. My phone has a 32gig memory chip. It can holds LOTS of info. Some paperback books will be good to have. But even off the grid a phone can still access certain apps that have been downloade. I have about 50 books on my phone. A compass. Maps. I can draw a quick map or list with my stylis too. I can easily share documents and file by just tapping my phone on another smart phone. Take pictures and zoom in on them. Great to check progress walking and general references.… Read more »
. Having commercial OR home canned foods of all types and using those during times of short water supply will furnish a substantial amount fo water. Most cans are 1/4- 1/3 water. ..even canned beef/pork, 24 oz size has approx 18 oz meat , the rest is fat and liquids cooked out fo the meat in the processing.. I am guessing the portion of water to be 4.5oz of water, and 1.5 oz fat, enough fat to make gravy and enough liquid to flavor it… all it will need is a few tablespoons of flour or rice flour to thicken, and form the rue.
There are many schools of thought on what should be stock piled in the event of a disaster or prolonged period of social disruption or societal collapse. It is hard to say with complete authority what “The best” foods are. This will depend on a number of factors, such as storage space, number of people to be fed, availability of water for preparation, availability of a means to cook foods or heat water, and the list goes on. There are however some standards that can guide pretty much anyone in the right direction. Just be certain that whatever you store, it provides enough calories, a dietary proper balance, vitamins, minerals, and fats. Remember, a crisis has a way of creating situations that will increase your caloric requirements, and that will tax your immune system and electrolyte balance.